Seek and Discover

The luscious green forest lines the path. At the south end of the
pass a mountain looms, standing tall over the trees. To the north the
spires of the city of Midgaard beckon. A cold silent wind sweeps down
from the mountain. The birds in the trees stop the chirping and watch
you.

[Bubba Chats] Anyone know the SW for the Mountains?

Beautiful things in out of the way places.

Ugh, how many times has this happened to me? Times to numerous
to count. Here I am embroiled in the search for the very mountains that
Bubba has asked for. He simply wants it handed to him, and someone
will. And all the time I spent looking for the path and following all
the twist and turns will be for naught. Who am I? I am an explorer.
What do I get from most games, No Respect. Sure your mud is one of
those new fads. An Rp mud. You reward those of us how fight by giving
xp to killers. You reward those of us who like to sit in the town
square and role-play. But what about me, that fourth suit? (Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds,
Spades: Players who Suit a Mud)

Well since many of you do not know anything about me let me
summarize what Dr. Bartle says:

ii) Explorers delight in
having the game expose its internal machinations to them. They try
progressively esoteric actions in wild, out-of-the-way places, looking
for interesting features (ie. bugs) and figuring out how things work.
Scoring points may be necessary to enter some next phase of exploration,
but it's tedious, and anyone with half a brain can do it. Killing is
quicker, and might be a constructive exercise in its own right, but it
causes too much hassle in the long run if the deceased return to seek
retribution. Socialising can be informative as a source of new ideas to
try out, but most of what people say is irrelevant or old hat. The real
fun comes only from discovery, and making the most complete set of maps
in existence.

Explorers say things like:

"Hmm..."
"You mean you don't know the shortest route from
<obscure
room 1> to <obscure room 2>?"
"I haven't tried that one, what's it do?"
"Why is it that if you carry the uranium you get radiation
sickness, and if you put it in a bag you still get it, but if
you put it in a bag and drop it then wait 20 seconds and pick it
up again, you don't?"

How does your game reward me? In most cases it does not. I am the
minority. I am also the one, you will be proud to know that can bot
your game. Just recently I had someone tell me that they were amazed at
how I had reverse engineered the way that a system in the game worked.
In a couple short nights I can work my zMud wonders and create a bot
that can power-level, power-quest, and fool Immortals. Sure in the
process I may be helled, I may get caught, but I am going to beat
you. So maybe instead of trying to stop me, give me a reason to go out
and explore, give me a reason to try and discover your game, the
mechanics and how it works.

Let me start off with one of my favorite types of exploring, Map
Exploring. Sure, we are the ones that are responsible for most of the
SW's in your Mud. Hey we are always on the look out to make shorter
ones, but give us some in game advantage to not share them or if you
want them, to go out and find them. My favorite way of doing this has
been travel points. They work much like quest points. You travel
around the world and at places randomly determined by the TP's you
gain a TP. TP's are invisible objects that have an attached program
that gives you a TP. That program then reloads a new TP some place
completely random in your world.

This method has worked on quite a few muds to encourage players to go
out and explore the world and not just rely on SW's. Now most of
these muds have made it so that you could not level without finding
x amt of TP's per level. Do not do this. You are no longer
rewarding me, the Explorer, you are punishing everyone else.

Other ways to encourage me, the explorer are quite simple. If you
are running a game with crafting skills, do not tell all the players
what you need to use to build such and such item. Let me create a
database of the materials and items, let me discover the way that they
are combined. It will reward me. Set things like discovered bits to
all of these things. And if it is not discovered, and I do discover
it, give me some experience! That is what I am talking about. I want
level by doing the things that I want.

So if it would not be too much trouble, and if you would not mind,
could you design a little something for me, the explorer. Oh, sure
I will play your game if you do not. But, beware my boting skills
will be utilized, and I will beat you.

When Lord Ashon is writing little zMud scripts to reverse engineer
other peoples code, he can be found working on his own project,
Wheel Mud, where if
you would not believe it, they are re-inventing the
wheel.